treasury direct vs. bond etf

[murphy_p_t]

After dealing w/ a 1" stack of EEs after my mother's death (RIP), I will NEVER deal with paper bonds (or probably even Treasury direct)...major league pain the the a$$, signature guarantees, UPS, Fed Reserve branch in Minn (yeah...they would talk to me @ my local Fed Res branch) & all.

Wow... I buy paper I-bonds every single year!  I hadn't realized they made this sort of thing so painful for heirs.  (While I plan to live forever as a brain in a jar, I do have to allow for the narrow possibility that I won't be around forever.)

i'm sure the accountant & estate lawyer won't mind shuffling those things like a Vegas poker dealer  :-(

[6 Iron]

If a new 30-year bond has a duration of about 15 or 16, then what would the duration fall to 10 years later?  I ask because TLT keeps a portfolio of very new bonds while a buy-your-own-and-hold-for-10-years approach means you'll end up with comparatively older bonds.

This reason, as well as the simplicity of maintaining the long bond allocation should something happen to me has kept me a TLT man. When I was starting my PP, the standard advice was to buy the longest dated bonds you can. I am fortunate to have started the permanent portfolio with a a significant sum, so I would have either needed to create a ladder from, for example, 25-30 years, or just buy 30 year bonds, but in 7 to 10 years that large initial bolus would have shortened the duration of my holdings until time to sell. That said, 0.15 % is what it is.